Combat seems to yield the most amount of experience points, which varies depending on your skills and luck, and considering the risk of death one would take when combat is fully implemented is understandable.

This aspect would most likely extend to ships as well whenever ship combat is implemented.

The question is assuming those that are working on R&D have thought about it would R&D provide experience comparable to that of combat considering from what this one has read in other threads that it would be something that one would focus on like combat rather than the fire and forget type of production?

The reason I am wondering is because I am interested in a peaceful and therefore less combat oriented character and would be interested in focusing on such things as R&D assuming it would be an alternative to the combat aspect of the Combine.

Essentially, would R&D as well as non-combat oriented abilities be considered secondary skills? Such as you are expected to at least have passable combat abilities while having one or two R&D skill tree, or secondary skills, with high values.

Sorry for all the text beforehand and this one is not entirely sure it has been explained as well as this one hopes so feel free to ask if you are not entirely sure about what this one meant.

The simple answer is that there's no way to know yet, and it will need a lot of consideration as it is being implemented, and depending on how it ultimately becomes implemented.

But if one is waiting for R&D to start accruing XP, one will be missing out on years of interim XP gains, so that may not be the best idea for an XP-oriented character (which is not necessary at all for an R&D-oriented character since you don't need an extremely high level for just the R&D skills, and you have no need for the high HP that is desirable for combat).

This one will assume it would depend on how R&D is implemented if whether or not there would be a point for having high amounts in a skill though this one understands your point.

This was wondering due to the race change and wanting to change to a less combat oriented character as mentioned before. Essentially, we will still need to have a few combat abilities if we wish to gain experience during the time between now and then which does answer another question.

Though an xp oriented character is required with R&D skills assuming that one wishes to have high skills in multiple lines of R&D much like one would spend many skill points in General skills to become a combat specialist. So a high level is needed much like with combat abilities which you most likely know already. ^_^.

I would point out that long-term, the skill bonuses given to some races in, for example R&D, are diminished as XP and levels are gained. Eventually, if you gain enough xp, you'll be able to get at least one R&D Skill at 5 while enjoying the good combat stats for xp gains.

The Race Multiplier, which increases the initial HP and I believe subsequent HP gains, is a good consideration for the long-term, should you feel that at some point you'd like to participate in ground-based combat. That may explain why there were many switches to Abyssins from the metamorphosis virus as they're the only ones with a Race Multiplier of 2.5.

If you have unlimited resources to fight and gain XP from combat constantly, the HP bonus will serve you better as an XP machine *now* so you can fight longer, and all you would need to do is keep SP unspent for whenever R&D is implemented so you know how best to apply them at that point.

This one already knows about the hp bonuses and things of that nature as this one has already applied the hp equations to all the racial multipliers and levels of strength as well to determine suitable combat races.

This one also has a nice stock of skill points already so that is not a problem. I basically wanted to go a more less-combat oriented route by choosing a race such as the Verpine, which will also be interesting to roleplay as well, and then set up the skills to match such a character. Which means the 14 points at character creation would go toward R&D and with the Verpine bonus that would essentially net 20 skill points in R&D before gaining levels and at level 25 one would gain enough skill points to master all R&D skills. Though that is slightly pushing it for the most part.

Kay, this one knows that combat is the best way to gain experience now if you are quite active. What this one is hoping for from R&D, when it is implemented maybe 2 to 4 years from now, is that it would provide experience on par with combat so that a person is not forced into combat in order to gain experience at a decent speed without massive amounts of resources needed. Though could you not just use npc's as shields assuming you have a low racial multiplier?

One little problem with that comment Syn...I actually do sometimes speak in third person whether or not it is in-character or out of character. Though ironically in real life it tends to occur when this one is under stress which is not so when typing.

Sorry for that little quirk as people do sometimes find it odd. This one never knew the Gand spoke in third person until several years after being part of the Combine so I tended to spend a lot of time thinking about what this one wrote and spend time fixing such things.